Page 29 of Hot Blooded

“Are you frightened?” The words were spoken in Amos’s familiar deep voice, but there was something different in his tone. Something wicked and hungry and maybe a little mean.

Was she frightened? Yes. A bit. But she was far more aroused than afraid, and she was surprised to realize that the fear had more than a little to do with it. That was… new. She stared up at Amos, feeling the thud of her heart against her sternum and the tremble in her hands as she clung to his shirtfront. She shouldn’t like being afraid of a man. But she did. She liked it a lot.

She squeezed her thighs against the pulsing ache in her core. The slight motion rocked her hips subtly against Amos’s. A low, wicked growl reverberated in his throat. It was the sound of a hunting animal, and it only made Tessa clench tighter.

“Frightened?” Amos prompted again, dark eyes gleaming as they fixed on the ticking pulse in her throat. “Or aroused?”

“Both,” Tessa whispered.

Amos went very still. “Both?” he repeated carefully. “I’m frightening you, Tessa?”

She squirmed beneath him, restless and flushed and trembly. “Yes. But I like it.”

Amos bowed his head, eyes squeezing shut, brow furrowing as if he were in pain. “Ah, sweetheart, you shouldn’t encourage me.” His eyes flashed open again, and the predatory hunger in them set Tessa’s heart thundering. She gasped as Amos fisted one hand in her hair, pulling her head back until her throat was bared to him.

“Amos,” she panted, thighs squeezing together, pussy clenching around nothing. Her underwear rubbed against slick, swollen flesh.

“Beg me not to,” he growled.

“Please,” she gasped, fingers clenching in the expensive material of his button-down shirt. “Please don’t—”

His fangs sank into her throat and her words died on a helpless cry of shock and pleasure. Instead of bracing himself politely above her like he usually did, Amos kept his full weight bearing down on her. As soon as his venom flooded her system, she was coming, wave after wave of incomparable pleasure. This time, when Tessa’s arms looped around Amos’s neck, he caught her wrists in one big hand and pinned them over her head. With one hand holding her by the hair, the other trapping her wrists, and his considerable weight draped over the rest of her body, she was completely and utterly caged by him. She had nowhere to move, no chance of escaping. The powerlessness made her nerves electric with fear and desire.

Amos drank from in her deep, bruising draughts, rougher than he’d been before, but with more of his delicious, drugging venom seeping into her veins and pushing her endless orgasm higher and hotter and sharper. The pleasure wiped out thought, wiped out sense. She lost track of the physical sensations of Amos’s fangs and his hard grip on her hair and skin, and the heavy weight of his body. She lost the feeling of inhabiting her own body, except for the mind-shattering bliss that kept cresting again and again and again.

Time stretched on forever. And yet, somehow, at some point, Tessa became aware again of herself and her surroundings. Bit by slow bit, she recognized the feel of Amos’s big arms wrapped around her, cradling her tenderly as his tongue stroked over the spot where he’d bitten her. His weight was no longer bearing down on her, but instead, curled protectively around her. Dizzy, tingling with pleasured aftershocks, Tessa let out a ragged breath.

Amos paused his focused tending to her throat, lifting his head. “Tessa?”

“Yeeeeesssss, Amos?” she asked loopily.

His body shifted, gingerly easing her from his hold. He rose up onto one elbow, gazing down at her. His face was flushed, his eyes still black. Concern knit his brow as he lifted gentle fingers to stroke her cheek. “I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice heavy with remorse. “I was completely out of control. Are you alright?”

The fuzzy post-feeding high was slowly beginning to dissipate, and enough of Tessa’s synapses were back online for her to realize that Amos was upset. “Are you alright?” Tessa asked.

Amos stared at her, at a loss to speak for a few seconds. “Am I— Am I— Jesus Christ, Tessa, I jumped on you like a rabid dog. You’re the one who needs to confirm you’re okay.”

Tessa huffed out a weak laugh. “Amos, I’m more than okay.”

He searched her face for a moment longer, then finally seemed to relax. With a heavy sigh, he sank back down, pulling her into his arms once again. “I promise I won’t lose control like that again.”

Tessa snuggled closer into the warmth and strength of his embrace. “Why not?”

Amos didn’t answer her right away. After a long pause, he finally ventured, “Would you like that?”

Tessa buried her face against Amos’s chest so she wouldn’t have to meet his gaze as she admitted, “I like when you take control.”

That purring sound rumbled deep in his chest. “Do you?” he enquired, a little of that dark hunger creeping back into his tone.

She nodded.

“But you were afraid?”

She pulled back, forcing herself to meet his gaze, even though her face was still burning. “It’s… it’s a good kind of afraid. Like… like a roller coaster. Or a haunted house.”

Amos cracked a smile at the last one. “I see.”

Encouraged, Tessa went on. “I have to be in control of so much stuff all day long and I guess… I like having you take it away.” She took a breath. “Only you. I can’t think of anybody else I’d trust to… to do that.”

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